[dan_the_welder]

As a big fan of the GPL I don't mean to come across as totally flippant. However, I just don't see a problem with people selling themes.

In a hurry, not enough skills, buy a theme. Skilled with the time to make your own, then roll your own.

You have a choice, you are not compelled to pay for a theme if you don't want to. The software will continue to work regardless.

Unless there is some kind of legal stalking horse that could affect the GPL, I don't see the point of all the fuss.

I use both Wordpress and Joomla and I see the same kind of thriving ecosystem around both projects. Commercial and non-commercial plugins and themes for both. Seems like a good thing to me and I don't see why it has to be an either/or situation.

If I am missing something then I would like to hear it.

[andrewtj]

There is no problem with selling themes. What may be a problem is distributing a theme under another license.

I think it's unlikely they'll do anything about this as legal action would be detrimental to their community; meaning that this won't be decided unless someone who receives a non-GPL'd theme contests it. This doesn't preclude Automattic/Matt from stating their view and raising a bit of a fuss as you put it in the interim.

To be clear - I'm neither a fan of the GPL, a lawyer or a WordPress user so I don't know whether Automattic is in the right and I'm indifferent as to whether or not they are.